Montreal ensemble Epic Meal Time gets ready to chow down at Cosmo's in Notre Dame de Grâce. The group, renowned for YouTube videos of outrageous recipes involving bacon and the like, will be performing at the Just for Laughs festival.

Cosmo founder Tony Koulakis, also known as Lord of the Potatoes and Captain Cholesterol, hung up his spatula long ago, but his son Nikos, now running the all-day breakfast joint with his sister Niki, invites Epic Meal Time’s Harley “Sauce Boss” Morenstein and his four co-conspirators to go crazy behind the grill. But not before they wolf back Cosmo’s famed Mish Mash omelette, an artery-clogging combo of bacon, ham, sausage, salami, onions, tomatoes and eight eggs that packs a whopping 1,900 calories per portion.

Morenstein and his cohorts don’t want to hurt Nikos’s feelings, but the Mish Mash is chump change on their caloric and cholesterol scale. Hell, the guys created their famed TurBaconEpic Thanksgiving Dinner, featuring five bird species stuffed in a pig with enough sausage and bacon to make Homer Simpson drool before sending him into cardiac arrest. The TurBaconEpic tipped the scales at around 80,000 calories.

Then there was Epic Meal Time’s Breakfast of Booze, consisting of everything from steak to dumplings to cream cheese to more bacon than is available at most supermarkets, all drenched with a couple of bottles of Jack Daniel’s. We could go on about their Fast Food Lasagna, consisting of 45 burgers and meat sauce and so much more bacon, but you get the tummy-turning picture.

The Epic Meal Time players have made more than 100 culinary-shock videos for YouTube, which have generated more than 441 million hits. Not surprisingly, their caloric excesses and all-around gluttony have caught the attention of folks well beyond our borders. Among other pit stops, they did the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and managed to gross him out.

Now, the boys will get their due on home turf, where they will play and concoct at the Just for Laughs festival, July 27 at Metropolis. They are circumspect as to what they will prepare for the evening – apart from the mandatory bacon and Jack – but Morenstein, the group’s mouthpiece, guarantees the creation will be among their most memorable. As an incentive – or not – audience members will be encouraged to sample the finished product.

For those who have never caught their antics, enter with an empty stomach. But the show is as much in Morenstein’s droll play-by-play as it is in the preparation.

They offer a tease of sorts at Cosmo. With limited supplies available – customers have already cleaned the place out of bacon – the boys, undaunted, attempt a culinary first: a Black Cherry Lard and Cheese and Sausage and Onion and Potato Burger. It’s the black cherry soda, drizzled over the rest, that gives this mass of fat its flavour.

Even Nikos, who has seen his fair share of over-the-top gorging, seems taken aback. But one of the conditions he has laid down for the guys is that they must devour what they have cooked. And they do, down to the last gooey morsel of cheese and onions.

Even hardened Cosmo customers have abandoned their counter seats while the boys knock their burger back. It takes a lot to revolt this lot, too. But Nikos is impressed: “Wow! That’s some kind of sickening snack. My dad would be very proud of you guys.”

Morenstein doesn’t like to boast, but he does point out they once made a monument to bacon that came in at a staggering 800,000 calories.

So now you’re imagining that the team members are roughly the same size as a pack of Clydesdale steeds. They’re not. Most are in decent shape, and even the 6-foot-6 mountain that is Morenstein doesn’t appear to have a gut. That’s because he’s on a diet that has him eating protein – think bacon again – every four hours, but he eschews carbs like bread and potatoes.

“Sometimes I have to break the rules relating to the carbs and the Jack, but it’s for the job,” says the full-bearded and shaggy-haired Morenstein, 26, a former substitute high-school teacher who likely had few discipline problems among his students. He cuts an imposing figure.

Morenstein and the others hail from the West Island, where many played football together as teens. They went off the rails shortly thereafter.

“We got a little bored in the West Island,” Morenstein explains. “So to amuse ourselves, we would throw burgers on pizza and stuff like that. Plus, I had always been passionate about video production. I started to check out these weird websites like This Is Why You’re Fat and became fascinated about creating culinary masterpieces, or abominations – take your pick.”

It took an extended period of gestation, but this mix of calories and video resulted in the birth of Epic Meal Time two years ago.

Ameer “Prince” Atari and Josh “Mooky Gwopson” Elkin do all the cooking for the videos – despite the fact that they had no cooking experience or culinary training whatsoever.

“Cousin” Dave Heuff does all the shooting and editing – despite the fact that he has no experience or training in these fields, either.

Tyler “Tyler!” Lemco is the actor – and, of course, he never graduated from any drama academy, although his ability to eat is abundantly evident.

Muscles Glasses, the only member of the gang not at Cosmo, is perfectly cut out for his role: He simply sits and says nothing.

“One of the few rules we have is that we don’t use vegetables – other than onions and potatoes,” says Morenstein.

Wait a sec: Morenstein is knocking back a Diet Coke. Is that not verboten?

“Nah, it just tastes better to me than regular Coke,” he shoots back. “But that’s really all part of our charm: We’re unpredictable. No one knows what we’re going to do next. Sometimes we don’t even know.

“But I do believe we’ve sparked a revolution of a kind. We’re anti-snob foodies.”

“Surprisingly to some, we actually get praise from elements of the foodie community – like Bitchin’ Kitchen, Jamie Oliver, Tyler’s Ultimate,” says Elkin, 29, who works out at the gym daily. “Sure, we’re crazy, but we are different. Bacon is our elixir. We’ve created our own mould.”

There must be a pun in there somewhere.

“People think the hard part of my job is the eating, but it’s really the Jack drinking,” claims Lemco, 23.

In fact, Morenstein insists the guys have always been able to keep their food down – no matter how revolting. “Sure, we’ve had our share of meat sweats, but I’m proud to say we’ve never barfed.”

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